Wife saves firefighter's life with CPR

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -Two nights after Christmas, Jessica Pichette and her husband, Luke, were getting ready to go to bed.

Jessica says her husband began making strange sounds, she thought he was having a stroke.

“I started dialing 911 at that time, kind of rolled him of over and at that time he a big deep breathe and then he was gone, he was not breathing, his eyes were rolled back,” Pichette said.

Luke, a Captain for the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department, went into cardiac arrest.

While one the phone with 911, Jessica pulled her husband off the bed and began CPR.

“I did chest compressions a few times I checked for a pulse, I could not find a pulse,” she said.

Jessica did chest compressions for six minutes until sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and EMS arrived and took him to the hospital.

He would spend the next seven days there until he was released to a hero’s welcome.

It was a difficult time for Jessica, fearing something could happen again.

“As a firefighters wife or as a police officers wife you worry about your husband or your wife at work, you don't worry about them at home, you think that's there safe place,” Pichette said, “my husband died in front of me at home, I watched it happen at home and it was terrifying."

But her prior CPR training is what made the difference.

The crucial skill is what saved her husband’s life and she hopes it’s something everyone can learn.

“My husband is alive because those first minutes are so crucial because I sprung into action and I just knew that I had to do it, there was no option for me not to do it,” Pichette said.

Luke is now back on duty.

Jessica says she would do the same thing, even for a stranger on the street if it meant keeping someone alive.